Lessons from the Tour de France

On 29th June 2013 the Tour de France set off on its 100th edition. There is no doubt that this is one of the greatest sporting events of the year and undoubtedly one of the hardest.

How the cycling teams prepare for the Tour gives us insights that we can utilise to achieve extraordinary performance in our teams.

The Tour de France is three weeks of bike racing with most stages over 100 miles in length over some of the highest mountain passes in Europe. I’ve ridden up some of them recently and can vouch for their severity. The race in itself is extraordinary.

Team Sky Sky Professional Cycling Team is closely associated with British Cycling and their concept of improving performance through finding marginal gains is well documented. Too many organisations however focus on marginally improving the wrong things. Dave Brailsford the mastermind behind the team’s success starts by ensuring every member of the team is clear about what they want to achieve. Not surprisingly the nine man cycling team of domestiques, climbers and Chris Froome their leader and favourite for overall victory in the race, know their roles.

All the support team including the mechanics, soigneurs, bus driver, director sportive, and chef are crystal clear about what the team wants to achieve and what they need to do for the team to achieve this dream. Quite simply their job is to put Chris Froome on the podium in Paris at the end of the race.

To achieve the extraordinary, your leaders, managers, team leaders, supervisors and front line people have to be crystal clear about their role in achieving your organisation’s podium finish. If I asked them what this was would they all give me the same answer? Are they working together as one winning team?